Notes on an Opening

JERUSALEM SHOW IV - EXHAUSTION

There is a woman with a laptop in a huge room. She is performing in sound to accompany the sunset over Jerusalem from the top floor of the Padico building in the heart of the Old City. The room is full but seems somehow empty because most of the people are standing or sitting around the edges. It’s as if they are reluctant to intrude upon the beauty of the floor. The room fills with the softening light from the pale orange sky. From every arched window a panoramic view of the Old City. The sounds go down gently with the sun. 

Sarah Faruki, Light Composition (2010)

Sound Installation

Up on the roof Jack Persekian introduces the 4th Jerusalem Show. He talks about the theme, Exhaustion, and about the walk that 100 or so people are about to take to 8 venues through the darkening streets of the Old City. It’s very hot for six o’ clock in the evening. “Not even the weather is normal anymore” says somebody. Before starting off, the 100 go down in small groups to the damp basement where a video projected on to the wall shows a man shovelling sand relentlessly from one pile to another. It's a task that never progresses. The wall is rounded, damp slightly crumbling. The shape and texture becomes part of the film.

Taysir Batniji, Impossible Journey

Video documentation of Performance, 2002-2009

Next we arrive at the Spafford Children’s centre and the interior of the building is again an amazing thing to see. The tiled floors, the huge rooms, the stone, the doors, the details. A video. A girl hangs upside down as the camera alternates between her view of things and our view of her. The rain pours down and soaks her and still she hangs. A fire is lit behind her and still she hangs. Normal things happen – cats playing, taps dripping – and still she hangs. 

Bahar Behbahani, Suspended (2007) 

Video

Another video. Looking down on soldiers marching in formation. Up and down. Turn around. Up and down. Turn around. In the shade. Out of the shade. Back in the shade. Back out of the shade. Hats off. Hats on. Off. On. Repeat. But the choreography of this battalion is not precise. You wonder if they are really soldiers or if it is just their own weariness.

Khaled Jarrar, I Soldier (2010)

Video 

Someone unlocks the big door to the Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family. It is already starting to feel like a privilege to be seeing the interiors of these buildings. Like being granted access to a secret manuscript but for this community it's normal. It's theirs. Another beautiful room. Tiled floors. Richly decorated walls, dark wooden doors and painted ceilings. Another video. This one is like watching Ophelia trying to prevent herself from drowning.  And we are only at the third venue.

 Raeda Saadeh, Drops (2010) 

Video 

Relocation

In late 1995 the lease on the premises in Salahudin Street expired and a decision had to be made about whether or not to continue with the gallery. Given the function that the space had started to serve, losing it would have been quite a blow to the emerging network. Persekian made a decision to relocate the gallery to the Old City where he had a space that used to be the workshop of his father's bookbinding business.

There were concerns with having the Old City as a location. Unlike Salahudin, it was not on a main street and was only accessible by foot so it was possible that less visitors would come. However, these premises meant that the gallery could continue without the constant need for huge amounts of money. So after giving the workshop a good clean, the new Anadiel was established in January 1996. Once again unanticipated things started to happen:

It became the most amazing thing being inside the old city. To work and to have artists visit here and to be part of that history and that environment. It meant that when the decision came to found Al-Ma’mal there was no question about where it would be - inside the Old City. (Jack Persekian, 2010)

This was echoed in a recent comment by another of Al-Mamal's founders, Khalil Rabah, who had also been with Anadiel right from the beginning: 

Losing Anadiel in Salahudin Street was painful but suddenly there was a new vision. Around this time I remember we took part in an exhibition in Geneva connected to the 50th anniversary of the UN. This highlighted the aspects of our art that already had an international identity. Given the international identity of Jerusalem particularly the Old City, Anadiel’s move made perfect sense and was absolutely the right place to be for the next stage of our development. (Khalil Rabah, 2010)